Voices of the Industry presented by Steer - #4 Part 1: Challenges and dynamics of rail regulation with the ORR

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hello and welcome to voices of the industry a podcast series bringing you leading industry voices who challenge
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thinking across Transportation infrastructure and
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[Music]
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cities hello listeners thanks for tuning in today's voice of industry is a bumper
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one our conversation with John Linson of the office of rail and road was packed full of the challenging contribution of
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Regulation to the UK's Railways and Roads we didn't want you to miss out of
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the interesting insights and opinions that John and Steven rain white our UK managing director had to share so we've
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split our conversation into a two-part podcast I hope you enjoyed the first
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part hello folks welcome to another edition of Steers for voices of Industry
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over the last8 years or so and over 30 articles and podcasts now we have captured the views experiences and
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insights of key players in their sectors from across the globe you can find those at steer group.com under the insights
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tab today is no different about the conversation and I'm very pleased to be joined online by John Linson the chief
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executive officer of the UK's office of rail and road or the O as we say here in
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the UK it's fair to say that the O currently plays a key role in the UK transport sector it is the independent
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economic and safety regulator for Britain's Railways and the monitor of performance and efficiency for England's
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strategic Road Network it aims to hold infrastructure managers Network Rail and highspeed one to account and to make
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sure that the rail industry is both competitive and fair the O also protects
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the interest of passengers and has other economic regulatory functions it regulates health and safety for the
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entire Mainline rail network in Britain as well as London Underground Light Rail trams and the Heritage sector I'm sure
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we'll just get into how the O operates and how it has to evolve with John shortly but let me first introduce you
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to John my guest John has been CEO of the O for over five years first on an
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interim basis before being confirmed into the role in March 2021 with over more than 20 years
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experience working within the rail industry he was director of network regulation and affordability as a first
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term of affordability that we're coming across today at the Strategic rail Authority before joining the O in
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2005 whilst at the O and before becoming CEO John had various roles including
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director of raway markets and economics as well as director of planning and performance John welcome thank you for
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joining us how are you today very good Mike and thank you very much for inviting me yeah it's great to have you
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with us have I have I captured your career appropriately I think you have that I was just going
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to add one thing because my experience of of rail started a little bit before I
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joined the the real strategic rail Authority because I actually for quite a short period about nine months I was
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seced onto the rail privatization team at the time of privatization of the
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railways in Britain in what would have been about the mid 90s those nine months actually got me interested in in Rail
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and it was only sort of I then worked in consultancy for a while and it was only when I saw the Strat rail Authority been
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set up which was around about the turn of the century that it sort of then gave me an opportunity to to move back in
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into into rail we we share a common thing because I I joined the railway in 93 and was experiencing privatization
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within a train operating company and I think that sucked me in as everything was changing around me there was a new landscape to play with new tools and
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processes to to develop it it was an exciting time the change has continued I think over the last three decades I
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think that's that's a fair summary yes it was in some ways a remarkable time and I I I just remember the speed at
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which things happened then I mean there's quite a bit of debate now about how fast or slow things do happen but I
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remember going in there and all contracts between each of the companies in the new privatized rail system they
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all had to be finalized and I remember being told they've all got to be done in the next nine months and that was it
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it's a pretty clear um Target I Target but yeah it was very
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different time as you say we might we'll get back onto that cuz it's a lot easier to break something up than it is to put it back together again as I think we're
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finding a bit now let me quickly introduce my fellow guest or host today Steven way wght Steven is a Consulting
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professional the last 20 years he's been with steer in various roles including leading our Global Aviation practice
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currently Steph is our acting UK managing director leading the team here in the UK his previous experience
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includes working with the caia the civil aviation Authority in the UK and air traffic and also advising on aircraft
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management across Europe so he has a great understanding of incentives regulatory asset bases price controls
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Etc Stephen good afternoon thank you for joining us thanks Mike um welcome and
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hello to John as well thank you John I've said I've tried to commit myself that as you know rail professional rail
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professional that we won't get sucked into a rail Centric UK dominated or
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conversation today and that will try and broaden the consideration of where regulation comes in into play in
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transport more generally so it's more accessible for our our Global audience uh that are listening I was going to
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start with you know let's talk about personal about how you got sucked in you've already told me about the privatization unit was there something
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else cuz I think I saw that you actually have two degrees both in economics but one of them's in health economics and
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you weren't you weren't in sucked into the challenge of UK health system as opposed to UK rail right you you put me
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on the spot there yes I do indeed have a a British
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master's degree in Health economics and I believe I was one of the first six people to get one it was an entirely new
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degree and uh obviously I was I was a lot younger back in those times and I had a very big idea that I was going to
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be having a pivotal role in the future development of Health policy in Britain
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but sting naively I went for a job at what was then British Department of
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Health and and Social Security I got a job there as an Economist and I thought I was going in there to lead the health
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transformation I met the chief Economist and he just took one look at me and said um we've got a good job for you on
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pensions and that was it really and uh so you may say I didn't handle it very well maybe I was a bit naive in terms of
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my my my sort of any I think only my second job but yes I actually became a pensions Economist for for for some time
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it wasn't quite what I was expecting but I'm sure I'm sure it's still be in good stead I'm sure and we might ask towards
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the end of this about the parallels between Health economics and rail econ e omics two sectors with some pretty
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challenges and lots of lots of strong opinions about them as well so let's talk about your your role you've been
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Chief exec now as you say confirmed in rolls early 2021 how what's your day
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look like what's the daily regime of of the Chie eec of the iron what what's what you drivve the organization to
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achieve well I could I could go for the sort of classic cliche of everyone's different but uh I think the thing about
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the aall we're actually a relatively small organization we we've got about 350 staff we we're basing six officers
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across across Britain so my my my day is is certainly geographically spread in terms of the our range of of operations
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and because we're as you say a health and safety regulator and an economic regulator and we also cover the channel
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tunnel as well I would say it's extremely varied in terms of the type of the type of work we cover we have an
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independent board as well we are an independent regulator we have a board which is independent and very much
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guards that Independence so I I work very closely with the board on decision making and I think it's fair to say we
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we have a very very close interaction with government uh just talk about your your International listeners the the the
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rail industry in Britain is is very heavily subsidized the Strategic Road Network in Britain that is is paid for
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almost entirely by the government and by definition if you're a regulator of two
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industries with very very high degrees of Public Funding you're going to spend
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quite AIT of time with your relevant government department and with the treasury and as say as the final point
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is that there's a lot of interest in Rail and Road nationally in in Britain we spend quite a bit of our time dealing
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with external stakeholders with the media and also with a huge supply chain there's a very very big private supply
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chain going into a two nationalized industry so I'd say I'm regularly dealing with a very wide range of organizations and and people but inde
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that's what makes it interesting yeah a complex set of interfaces and
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organizational personalities to to nurture and master I guess indeed and then you the thing is you've always got
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to keep your mind what what's the end game and the end game is that the users of the networks you know both Rail and
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road it's e almost almost easy to get get lost in the system if you're not careful and stand back and say just
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let's just have another walk through about why why are we why are we doing this and so we've got Rail and road
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we've got Freight and passengers and of course we've got the taxpayer and what
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you might say more broadly that the public interest uh and ultimately we we are Guardians of the public interest so
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I mean the O is is as you described critical to rail sector providing that monitoring role for for the Strategic
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highways in England standing back from the specific role of the O in those two sectors how
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important is transport regulation in the UK these days do you think it's grown in
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importance yes I think it I think it has I mean there are there are other transport Regulators in Britain I mean
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we have a an aviation regulator in effect the civil aviation Authority and we we don't deal with that but I think
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the re if you think about why is it so important just look at the scale of the industry and there's only one network
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rail network rail owns virtually all the rail infrastructure in Britain not everything but virtually everything it's
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spending just on its Core Business over 10 billion pound a year you know that that is a big company by by most by most
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standards National Highway is a bit small but still still a significant company so I think just the the scale on
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rail of having a single monopolist over such a wide reach having such a big impact on every other company and is
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publicly funded so you have a political Dimension uh it does put a lot of
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emphasis on on the regulator really holding the ring there and and bringing crucially transparency to to the whole
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process in in in the nature of the industry and your point of is is it grown in importance
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I I guess the different one for me there is around the national highways one because the legislation for that
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actually set up our role as a a a a regulator and I I I think the word in
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the legislation does refer to monitor but we are a regulator of national highways and the reason why I use the word regulator is that we have
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enforcement Powers we can require the company to do something and to me that immediately monitors don't have that
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you so proba shouldn't say it's always the legislation didn't quite capture in
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that single word the role those enforcement powers are crucial but if you look at the the role regulation
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there it it was very much as part of a package the government wanted to see a package which got National highways more
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focused on the user again so it's less of just maybe sort of a very good engineering company and more sort of why
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are we doing this what are what are the users of the network working for so that in a sense was quite a big structural
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change in in for highways strategic highways in in Britain in the relationship between a new company and a
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new regulator and and that was took some while for to settle in it's a you've
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been in a company that's never had a regulator before and you get one and we we had no prior experience in
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Road and we get and we get that role that that was a big shift I mean I really remember the sort the early
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period it was just hard hard work all around yeah but learning on both sides
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indeed Stephen John's Exposition around the role of regulation in the sector how
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what any perspectives from how you've think seen its change in Europe do you do you see increasing demand for
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independent regulation I think I think there is and I think probably something
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which John's been obviously a lead of is a lot of the IR regulation was was brought in in the mid 80s with private
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Industries being privatized and and companies being regulated through that process I think increasingly there's a
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recognition throughout Europe that regulation needs to play a role with both private companies but also publicly
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funded companies and corporatized companies and incentives may be different in those organizations but
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they still need to play a role in trying to achieve what John has also described
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is what the consumers need and that that's a process that I think has it it
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it's probably been happening for 20 or 30 years but it is something which is
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certainly a trend which continues thank you I'm intrigued by that with a unregulated market the
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consumer the user provides the incentive on the organization to adapt and and I'm
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intrigued John question I've got is do you see the regulation as a as a driver
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of change that you are a catalyst and a Force for good which causes an organiz a
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to change or are you more of an Arbiter and judge to know whether they're going fast
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enough I I'd probably say that we try to be more of a driver of change I mean
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just to illustrate that we we used to have quite lengthy debates less so now but back in the day about about
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enforcement about an emphasis on enforcement you give the company a clear Target if he doesn't deliver you're
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enforce personally I I always felt well I don't think most users of systems are
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actually massively interested in sort of retrospective enforcement if things have already gone wrong I don't think that
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necessar give gives people what they want and but by way of contrast and I'm not saying this is completely black and
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white I think you you probably do have to vary a bit in different circumstances but if you look at say Network Rail and
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every year it set it's got an efficiency Target so you could wait to see whether it hits the efficiency Target and then
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do something about it you know you could you could try and punish it in some way although with because it's nationalizing
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industry in effect there are few sort private um sort of incentives there but what what what we just found a lot more
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useful we was just doing we did a lot of work with network Ray on leading indicators of efficiency how how good a
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set of in leading indicators could we get which actually gave a pretty high degree of forecasting accuracy perhaps
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up to a year out not mean not not I'm talking years and years out but within say an annual business cycle and that's
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just proved so much more valuable really because we spent a lot of time getting them right we track them together very
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closely they prove to be pretty accurate and and that's allowed a much more sort
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of nuance conversation about say spreading lessons across the different regions of network rail just to make
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sure everyone's picking up on all those efficiency points rather than just saying well know we failed we failed and
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it doesn't work in all areas I would wouldn't say it was a Panacea but as a general rule of thumb I I really think
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that's worth driving for and Stephen that any view on European perspectives that you've seen
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or Aviation perspectives of how whe whether it's enforcement of or leaning
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incentives lagging or leading the indicators whether there's a is there a is is what the UK and what John and the
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r are doing different to what you might have perceived in Europe or is that
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pretty con consistent I I mean I think it does it does come back to where the company's
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decision making is is is coming from what what the governance of the company where where can you put the incentives
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but I a very much a believer in having the balance right really across those
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those different levers that are available to regulators and using that balance it may
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be tailored in a slightly different way depending on the industry and depending on the ownership arrangements and the
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incentives of that company but using a balance across those three I think is is
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important one of the important perspectives in that relationship of using the different
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levers available I guess John is that as a health and safety regulator that's quite is that is that that's quite
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different to the economic regulation role or it plays there's a there's a relationship relation those things and I
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wonder how because you did the O didn't start off with that role it was given it later on and I'm just wondering how have
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you seen that come to bear in the organization and what does it what does it mean for the day-to-day operation and
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functioning of the o yeah yeah absolutely right Mike I mean certainly when I first joined the IR we we were
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what you might call Pure economic regulator we we had no health and safety powers and then a decision was taken and
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legislation was introduced effectively to move the health and safety teams from what was then the health and safety
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regulat more generally in the and that was a big big cultural change I mean it
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wasn't just a sort of technical change it was a cultural change you were bringing two very different groups of
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people together with very different background ground and at the time there were quite a few people certainly people
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externally who said well this this is this is not right this is not going to work you shouldn't be mixing uh economic
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decisions and and health and safety decisions and I think that's been proved as an argument be be conclusively wrong
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absolutely no doubt and I still have people arguing about this today so I'm happy to I'm happy to debate it because
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people still debating it um but I'm um I'm absolutely convinced that there is a more informed debate and discussion
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about out both health and safety issues and economic issues because we've got those two groups of people together and
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just to give if I just had time for one really quick example the rail sector in Britain uh rail usage is down revenues
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are down there's a lot of pressure to save money not surprisingly and it's t funded and you've got looking to save money so Network rail have had a
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proposal about modernizing their way ways of working on maintenance it's called modernizing maintenance Proposal full year it could be grow savings
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around 100 million pound a year it's a big initiative the main issues with it have been concerns about health and
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safety implementation of it could it be implemented safe safely it's different ways of working and and we've approached
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that in in a sort of dual way we we've looked at the sort we looked at the efficiency side of it but we we've had
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our safety inspectors go down to meetings at incredibly local level individual delivery units with Trade
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union teams talking through it exactly how we check the potential health and safety implications of it and as a
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result of that effectively by that sort of collabor workings the network ra have agreed it it's gone through the safety
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processes the unions have been very closely consulted and and and I hope
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that that will effectively be a more robust proposal over time because of the
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degree of working from different angles as that has gone into it I'm not I'm not saying it's perfect or there wer debates
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along the way but to me it's more likely to hold as an initiative and change and
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and that's that's one one of the benefits of having a a regulat covering both Les from my perspective and and in
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the day-to-day operation of the organization how do you bring those those because they got different
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capabilities as you said I can imagine at your top team safety professionals economic regulation professionals coming
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together does it does it come together at a a lower level at the you know the coldface level or absolutely yes um we
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we have a process of escalating concerns that we have with network ra so we have
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a sort of basically we have a list of almost like watch list of things we're looking that that we think might turn
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into concerns then they get escalated literally into into concerns we we rank
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them and if you look at the way that process works then people actively
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debate whether effectively this is say a a safety or asset management issue it
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happened particular on structures as an example we had an issue about backlogs
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of inspections of structures things like Bridges and things like that what what's the best way of tackling this was it
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really safety issue or was it more of an asset management issue and and those those sort of debates as you say at that
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at that sort of what you might call the working level real really the sort of coldface I think are great I think
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they're invaluable they just lead to better outcomes Stephen how does it how does you see it perceive it working in the
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aviation sector well I think I think it's evolved I think in many ways the UK
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was a leading proponent of how this worked and there was there was a separate economic and safety regulator
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but it was still part of the CA and and I think you you can really contrast that
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with how the regulatory oversight of of air traffic Management in Europe was
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introduced which it was only really introduced in the in the late 1990s there were indicators and
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performance areas which covered safety capacity environment and cost efficiency
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so it it really reflect the evolution of of Regulation over that period whereas a
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lot of focus in the early days was around the kind of costs and the cost efficiency there actually are now
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indicators on equally important areas of safety the amount of capacity that's
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available in the system and the environmental impact of operating the system so I think there's there's that's
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a matter of time I think and the the benefit of other Regulators plowing the
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way previously in that area area stepen you picked up that broader agenda particularly I'm thinking now about the
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environmental and social delivery of of Transport I guess of of asset management
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Etc and and John how are things evolving because it seems to me now that the good news is we talk about transport and its
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outcomes a lot more clearer than perhaps we did before we know why we have a transport system but there is
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expectations about how those outcomes are now achieved through you know minimizing carbon footprint and
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operating sustainably and deling social value through these things how does the O wrestle with a I think which I think
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is still an emerging agenda and emerging science in some of these areas it is
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definitely an emerging SES and you say it has it's been quite a significant change over the over the few years you
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go back literally back in the day I I don't remember much debate of bi biodiversity units uh and and things
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like that that's see in asset terms this is a relatively short-term issue whereas now you look at uh National Highway
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running the street road networks in England and they have targets around increasing biodiversity units they've
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got they've got targets they're held to account for we publish the outcomes of those and whether they're making
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progress towards it and net gains and it is it's it has it is a big shift uh in
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some ways though the shift the other way of the impact of the environment on the
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assets I think in some ways has just been even more profound there I mean
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there is it it's been a huge feature of our work over the last few years on Rail and Road
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an area of quite big debate as well especially when you've got a constrained funding environment how you prioritize
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under in that scenario and it's LED quite big shifts in spend by assets more
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spend on drainage for example particularly on on on rail I mean that's and we we monitor that whole area far
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more closely than I you know I remember 10 years ago or or whenever the the the Focus we put into the analysis of of
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drainage assets uh the the resilience of drainage assets and of worth works and
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and the issue for us in in Britain unlike I think a lot of countries is just how old our acid pce is we've got a
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lot of assets going back at 150 years or or more and and they they were designed
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in a world where people didn't have to think much about these things and that that is that is really driving cost now
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it in in the system and and some fairly ruthless prioritization because you it
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drives a debate about well you might want to add lots of things lots of nice things to this Railway Network and let
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have lots of enhancements and new lines and things but if if you if it's going to cost more to maintain your core asset
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base over the years and at the moment looking forward over the next five years we we will not sustain the condition of
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the core asset base um it's going to get a little bit worse that they they're they're quite profound issues in terms
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of choices that that will have to be made over time and of course they they're not very glamorous bit bits of
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work compared to obviously not surprising that a lot of MP a lot of
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politicians members of parliament in Britain or or or their constituents I big people would like a new station wouldn't they or they'd like maybe a new
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line to connect them to another part of the country or something like that and of course those things add to the asset base as well and I'm not sure we we've
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quite entirely really confronted some of the very very tough choices tradeoffs
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that going have to be made in in in the future do you do you think decision makers understand those difficult
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choices those tradeoffs or they they don't understand they can't see them or
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they can see them but they're too difficult to take at this stage and we'll wait a little bit longer it's
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interesting I suppose in a semi political context where we have um it's often said in in Britain that the the
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treasury basically the custodians of of the finances here you they they they
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they're not interested in the the longer term or or they they don't get these big bites things actually I I I I find they
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do I find they very very much do get it but of course they they're having to make choices and priorities too but
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certainly when we provide analysis of of the road Network or or the rail network
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there's actually an awful lot of interest in just what what is happening to the core assets you know are they
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being maintained yes or no what and and how does that how does that feed through into the future delivery because and and
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obviously as a regulator what's the what's the point of having a regulator if if they're not there at least as a
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custodian of the long-term public interest so even if we think people aren't getting it as you say Mike well
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actually it's sort of our job to explain it there isn't it because there's no there's no excuse for regular to go into
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sort of victim mode so well you know they they don't get it you know in our case we've got to get out there and
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we've got to say look if you care about the long-term asset base here this is what's going to happen but actually I
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find the the the treasury extremely well informed uh about the about the longterm
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the need to maintain and sustain long-term asset basically and how I inrig by the capabilities of the O I
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mean because as you said we're wrestling with new new agenda social value sustainability biodiversity as you said
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and now we're talking about seasonal impacts and trying to understand climate science how do you equip the RR with
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that those insights and that capability to communicate to decision makers and to push your regulatories I'm not sure what
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you would call your your subjects of Regulation I'll pass on the EXA word
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but your questions questions very good one it's actually very challenging because if you if you look at the number
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of areas we we cover we we we cover Health we cover safety we're we're competition regulator as well we are we
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we publish NASA statistics across rail so as so what what you tend to find is that each Specialist Team maybe two to
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three people and and hence operationally from my perspective as a chap executive operationally there's there's a sort of
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fragility there uh in teams in terms of trying to get resilience and and get
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teams sort overlap a bit to get say you've got a bit more resilience in in the system and the most one that we
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spent a lot of time on recently is just the the impact of software in trains you
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know back in the day trains were lot A lot of it was about mechanical engineering and if the train failed you
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you had somebody who who knew their mechanics and could find where it gone wrong whereas now we we see increasing examples of where it's very hard to
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explain why something has happened and in terms of our skill base we we have
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hired more external support on that we've also basic redone our training
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regimes for some of our some of our safety inspectors to try and build a SK skill base around understanding software
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and and though obviously there'll be this this is only heading in One Direction so there'll be a lot more of that so yeah we like every organization
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we we have to adapt to a changing requirement and we have to try and compete in in some of those markets but
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they're they're quite hard markets competing and so we need so the trick for us is to be quite precise about what
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we need where we we we need someone who understands enough to ask the questions
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rather than can sort of Sol solve the entire coding Problem by themselves we're probably better off going to a
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specialized private company yes I I was only having a conversation this morning with a industry colleague who who when I
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said I was chatting to yourself later today was saying ah the O they need to get into the regulation of data because
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so much will be depending on the data going forward to influence the real world but it's the control of data
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that's going to be so important going forward another capability you're gonna have to add well whoever that was would please
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to know that at our board last last month we were debating our new data strategy so uh we we I wouldn't say we
30:28
solved it but but we're we're on on the on the case so in in preparation for the podcast I asked colleagues uh from steer
30:36
and particularly the rail team here in the UK what questions we should pose to you John and and this is this has come
30:42
from the team uh and I'm assuming there's a vested interest or a perspective on it so they were asking
30:47
you about that environmental social delivery angle particularly about how it Compares with other European countries
30:56
but the question then went on to ask about how has brexit changed the relationship
31:01
between o and its counterparts has brexit given you some more freedom has it uh given you an ability to compare
31:08
and contrast perhaps with other regulation across Europe what's what's your take brexit did have quite a
31:15
profound impact on us we we were integral part of lots of groups across Europe dealing what you might call
31:21
things like technical standards or or safety issues and we we actually going
31:26
back back over the years we've actually played quite a leading role in the development of many standards uh and
31:32
indeed the the the approach to safety uh in in terms of sort more risk-based approach rather than the rules based
31:38
approach you might say to very general terms all that that went I that largely
31:43
disappeared and that that was quite a big impact I I haven't personally seen
31:49
this is not this is not a political comment I don't I don't think it's any any sort of particular gain from the
31:54
from the r for from for the from from brexit what what what what we have done
31:59
is tried to maintain our contacts with with European countries because a lot of them are are relevant for S almost like
32:07
well got your data point data and intelligence gathering comparing uh
32:12
contrasting um uh so we've tried to maintain that but it it has been profound change although I suppose going
32:19
back to the the the point about sort of different approaches we we do we do
32:25
actually see that on a day-to-day basis in terms of the regulation of the the channel tunnel uh we work really closely
32:32
uh with our with our French with our counterparts in in France um and you do you do see the interesting difference of
32:38
approach it was only recently that uh a very very powerful electricity interconnector was popped installed in
32:45
the tunnel the first time as far as I know it's ever been done in a live running tunnel anywhere in the world although some some one of your list
32:51
might correct me on that but it raised so this was to allow basic electricity to be traded between Britain and France
32:57
and it's actually turned out to be extremely valuable both ways and during while some of the French nucle reactors
33:03
were down for maintenance the the British electri was shipped over so it's it's useful for both countries and it's
33:08
been a very substantial Revenue generator for for the for the Chunnel tunnel company but the safety issues
33:14
around that and the debate about the safety issues that were very very technical very very intense debates with
33:21
two different approaches to the way that safety is is is addressed in legal terms
33:27
and different backgrounds from from ourselves and our French counterparts in how we both looked at the the issues but
33:34
but the fact is we we work together very very very well we've got extremely good relations so you do have different
33:40
approaches but they they they can they can be overcome uh as long as the Will's there but for us this is a sort
33:46
day-to-day issue in in terms of um health and safety and and at the moment
33:52
and more recently in terms of access to the railway because at the moment I mean
33:57
but just to explain for sort list is more more generally there's there's only one train company that basically really moves you between London and Paris and
34:05
and and other cities and in recent months three competitors have named
34:10
themselves which is know qu quite a SE quite a sea change in the in the operating environment and and now we
34:17
those operators are going to be traveling in through different countries and and through the tunnel so again we we are in discussions with our with our
34:23
counterparts counterparties around that so these these issues are still there the the issues of geography and
34:29
competition health and safety remain yes Stephen you've done a number of studies for the European commission European
34:36
Parliament on on well helping to identify policy but also reviewing the impact of policy have you got any
34:42
perspectives on how how I suppose different nations and Regulators have worked across well or where they you've
34:48
seen that it it really hasn't worked and some people have abdicated to comply or something yeah I mean that that's a big
34:55
issue I think Mike in terms of how well do people work together and I think there's different experiences really I
35:03
think I think where things have evolved with working with Regulators to get the
35:09
regulations that perhaps is wor better than regulations being imposed and The Regulators catching up with it and and
35:17
there are a few occasions in in in in the EU where regulations have been imposed and it's taken quite a long time
35:23
for the kind of regulators to catch up I think the the classic one is is is something that all of us will be
35:29
affected by is is passenger rights and that that's that's gradually come across
35:35
all transport modes it originally in aviation but is actually now in All Transport modes I think that has taken
35:42
some time for cooperation and the systems to really catch up with the with the concept so I I do think it does
35:48
depend on on where you started from thank you I mean with so that was talking about I suppose regulation
35:53
across geographical boundaries I John I wanted to talk to you about transport system Rail and Road they connect to
36:00
other things they require the connection to other things there are as you said you were indicated earlier there's there
36:06
are more Regulators in the UK than just the O the O how is the interaction
36:12
between different uh Regulators between modes networks utilities how how's that
36:17
going how do we ensure that that regulatory ecosystem which emerges is
36:22
both efficient coherent agile and supports the development and deployment new technology such as zero emission
36:29
Vehicles which needs energy which will be located on transport Mobility hubs and how is that
36:35
working uh so just think about whether it's best illustrate more general or
36:41
through some examples so just just taking your point about okay certainly electric vehicles charging points if you
36:48
if you look at National highways it agreed fairly early on that there should be an aim to get a certain number of
36:53
charging points at every service station and that was that I think agreed pretty quickly actually it's just it's but then
37:00
as you say there are are interfaces not just between Regulators but between government Regulators private companies
37:08
uh Financial arrangements so that they're never they're never easy but I think we' Le been shown that they they
37:15
can be done but you also get operational interfaces uh so if you look say at the
37:21
work that National highways does and the work that Network rail does often these intersect points they they affect each
37:28
other or they might both be jointly working in an area and I do think that the sort of this matters to people at
37:33
the local level you know how much disruption these work cause and people think well couldn't they just could they
37:39
just talk to each other this this is very common you can see why people think no it's sure it's obvious is they could
37:45
talk to each other and I I do actually think over the last few years that Network rail National highways have
37:51
actually got better at coordinating joining up their work it's it's not always possible to IR these out but they
37:59
and this partly I think reflects Network Rail and National highways increased Regional Focus it's not all done from
38:04
Central HQ where everything seems frankly slightly distant there's much more re Regional planning and so it it
38:11
might seem sort of well okay how many jobs you talking about but to the individuals involved affected by them on
38:17
the ground these are quite important things and so I don't think sort of almost like small scale local
38:23
cooperation should be overlooked uh either we we tend to gravitate to sort big really exciting stuff don't we but
38:31
these things matter at all levels that just I suppose just one go back to the
38:36
other level really really high level Point The Regulators in in Britain do talk to each other there are forums
38:43
there even even a chief X forum for for Regulators in in in Britain so they they they do they do torture each other and I
38:51
I suspect though that it's just a little bit different in Rail and road because
38:57
there are Lally fewer companies there quite a few water companies or um electricity providers and things like
39:02
that there's only one National highways and there's only one network rail so the Dynamics I think are a little bit
39:08
different in in terms of joining up between different organizations but it happens I think
39:15
sometimes though people you people sort of use joining up in in slightly
39:21
different ways I think what sometimes people mean by joining up is like can't one if you put more money into it
39:29
yeah so I frankly feel sometimes we talking euphemisms and what people really just
39:36
say they're not actually interested in the process of joining up at all they want more cash to go into a particular
39:42
area and that is a side different point so folks that's the end of part one with John in the next part we'll shift gears
39:50
to discuss specific projects including hs2 and explore how these decisions shape the future of rail infrastructure
39:56
I'm looking forward to sharing how we dive deeper into these topics in our next installment see you then
40:19
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